Cartier Celebrates Its Latest Collection With a Lavish Parisian Fete

Marching bands! Stilt-walkers! Tap dancers! Tables with mile-high floral extravaganzas and candelabras stretching as far as a carefully mascara’d eye can see! Slabs of beef plopped down in front of you, whether you eat meat or not! You’re at the Conciergerie in Paris, a medieval palace turned prison where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned during the French Revolution, at a lavish gala in honor of Cartier’s new Clash collection.

Just a few days in the future, the unimaginable will happen—Notre-Dame, so near here, will burn, and the world will look on in sadness and horror. Parisians will gather on the bridges that cross the Seine and sing hymns; President Macron will vow that the cathedral will be rebuilt within five years. And you will think back on this Cartier idyll with a new appreciation, a new acknowledgment of the fragility of beauty and all that we take for granted.

But that is in the future on this starry night on the Île de la Cité. Someone tells you that Rami Malek and Lucy Boynton are in the house, but of course you don’t see them. You do see Sofia Coppola, who is always very nice, and Alek Wek, who looks incredible in white overalls and wants to take a selfie with you. After dinner, a very flexible singer called Chris—of Christine and the Queens—gyrates across the stage. The French people in the crowd seem excited about her, but you are utterly unfamiliar. (You later find out that she has been on SNL and is kind of a big deal.) And now for the headliner—is this what Cartier means by clash? If you mean old versus new, then versus now, Gallic sentimentality versus American cynicism—well, here comes a very well-preserved Billy Idol! You stay until he sings “Dancing With Myself,” and then you decide to dance yourself right back to the Crillon, where you and the rest of the press corps are staying. In your room, you find a Billy Idol T-shirt and a tray with caviar and French fries waiting for you, and you feel like a queen—like Marie Antoinette herself—and then you remember that she got her head cut off a few yards from here, at the Place de la Concorde.

The next morning, you meet in a breathtaking salon in the Place Vendôme—why don’t you have floral walls like this? —to examine the Clash pieces up close. There are spiky rose gold necklaces with a subtle swing and a spectacular coral-bead ring that everyone loves and turns out to be pricier than the diamond version, who knew? Earrings marry golden peaks and round diamonds; bracelets are crying out to be stacked. The good news is that many of these pieces are relatively well priced. (“Don’t say cheap!” you are admonished. “Say accessible!”) One editor, unable to control himself, buys a ring on the spot—a rose gold affair that resides somewhere between precious and punk—making him the very first American to own a piece of the collection. (The jewelry will be launched internationally later that day.)

Next comes lunch in a bistro called Bronx Brasserie, erected especially for the occasion, with a menu courtesy of the culinary collective Ghetto Gastro. (Rue St Honoré meets the Grand Concourse—another clash!) You might think all this is quite enough, but you would be wrong. As if a faux café is not sufficient, the next stop is a faux record store created by Michel Gaubert and a faux bookstore curated by Galignani—you can help yourself to a vinyl album or a book, but hands off the rare Avedon Interview magazine on display.

The whirlwind concludes with a dinner at the Clown Bar, a place you are dying to visit because everything in your wardrobe is suitable for a Clown Bar, if no place else. The historic spot, next to the Cirque d’Hiver, has been open since 1902 and features tiles depicting clowns having a gay old time. (Legend has it that the jesters used to gather here before the show.) The specialty appetizer, a black “beignet” that looks like a lump of coal—or something worse—turns out to be incredibly delicious. (But you do have someone else serve as a gastronomic canary in a coal mine before you try it yourself.) The gang decides to hit a karaoke bar near the Place du République, and you decide that you will take a page from those magicians who hung out here so many years ago and do a vanishing act. Back to the Crillon you toddle—like the Clash once sang, you live by the river!—to dream of floral wallpaper, Billy Idol, and your own idle hands, craving a Clash ring.